


Runners

by Immicolia



Category: Yu-Gi-Oh! VRAINS
Genre: Alternate Universe - Cyberpunk, Alternate Universe - Shadowrun Fusion, Alternate Universe - Urban Fantasy, Ficlet Collection, Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-05-30
Updated: 2018-05-30
Packaged: 2019-05-16 04:53:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,400
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14804733
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Immicolia/pseuds/Immicolia
Summary: A collection of short ficlets set in a mashup of Vrains and the Shadowrun universe.Summary of most recent part: Shoichi became magically active within a week of Jin disappearing. And all he wants is for things to go back to how they were.





	Runners

**Author's Note:**

> Anyone who's had to deal with my constant Varinsposting on Tumblr knows that I have been comparing it to Shadowrun since literal day one. So on some level this mashup has been coming for pretty much a year. But the past few weeks especially have been really hitting my "be more Shadowrun why don't you, show" buttons and made me go "okay, screw it, I'm writing this now".
> 
> A quick rundown for those not familiar with the setting: Shadowrun is a tabletop RPG system set in a dystopian future that's part cyberpunk and part urban fantasy. Basically you have magic and various fantasy races, and you also have a giant VR computer network (the Matrix) and things like cybernetic enhancements all side by side.
> 
> I'm hoping that these stories will be general enough to be enjoyed regardless, but at the end of the day this is some of the most self-indulgent nonsense I've ever written.

Shoichi awakened at thirteen, the same week Jin disappeared. It's long enough ago that his memory on how many days there were between those two events are fuzzy but he remembers turning invisible and his mother screaming, thinking that both of her sons were gone now, and his father thinking that he'd done it on purpose for attention.

He hadn't. He may have felt invisible with everyone running around desperately searching for Jin, but he never wanted to scare his parents like that. Never wanted to steal attention away from the search.

When his parents decide that he can't take any more time off of school, no matter how upset he is over Jin, he's sent to a new one. One that specifically caters to the magically active and he's told that he's lucky. Corporations are always looking for magicians or adepts and Shoichi has the potential of either shimmering there just below the surface.

He hates it.

He doesn't want to be magical and he doesn't want to be in a new school. He wants everything the way it was before.

He wants is Jin home.

 

The day Jin is found is the same day Shoichi finds his Mentor. Or is it his Mentor finds him? He remembers being exhausted from crying and dozing in a chair while his parents had hushed conversations with a doctor and there being a spider in his dreams. Or maybe there was a spider on the wall. Or maybe it was both. Things are confusing with spirits.

 **You could learn things,** the Spider tells him. **You could find out what happened to Jin.**

He's aware of what it is. Mentor spirits are one of the first things new students are taught about in amongst all the magical theory and on his first day back to school once things calm down a little (a little but not much, because Jin is so thin and still and silent now and no one knows what to do) he tells his teacher about the Spider.

"Are you positive it was a spider?" he's asked and Shoichi frowns although at the same time he knows why. Alongside the lessons about spirits were warnings about the ones that are insects and brief (incredibly toned down he learns much later) history lessons about the related troubles that sprung up some ten years before.

But spiders aren't bugs, they were taught that as well and he nods and says, "It had eight legs."

He's switched to a class with a handful of other kids who have Mentors, although he doesn't like that any better than the one he was already in.

 

When he's fifteen he rebels. It's to be expected, all teenagers do the same to one degree or another. But Shoichi decides that he wants nothing to do with magic anymore (he never did) and throws himself into the Matrix.

Spider doesn't care. Even as patchy as it's been since the crash, the Matrix is simply another way to gather information and develop connections and _that_ is what interests it. If anything it encourages him. **This is the best way to learn what happened. You're clever, you'll figure it all out someday.**

He wishes he couldn't feel its influence at all but there's not much he can do about that. At least not right now. When he's older, if he can save up enough money, maybe he could get some cyberware installed. Lots of it. Enough for what magic there is inside him to die and maybe then Spider will go silent.

But that is something that's a long way off, if ever. For now the most he can do is ignore his studies and try to pretend that he never awakened at all.

His parents are disappointed but that's expected. They cajole and lecture and ultimately threaten him to take his studies seriously for all the good that it does. Shoichi has made a choice. Whether or not it is a good one to completely ignore something so inherent to him is questionable, but he's still going to do it.

Even though it will change nothing.

 

At eighteen he leaves home and scrapes together enough money for a used datajack. The dead spot it leaves in his essence is cold and raw around the edges but it's not enough to quiet Spider. Although after five years he's become used to the mentor spirit's presence, perhaps even to the point where he might miss it if it were gone.

His grades were never good enough to get one of those shiny corp jobs that were dangled as a reward in front of all the kids in his class. He never cared enough to begin with so when he started to let things slide even more the only thing stopping him from failing outright was a tiny amount of inherent skill and gentle nudges from Spider. But at the end of the day he'll never be much of a magician, certainly not enough to get work as one.

That's fine though, he finds the Matrix far more interesting and data theft is easy and lucrative enough.

Getting involved in illicit business is only natural given the dark places he needs to dig into while trying to find out what happened to Jin. There are all sorts of whispers about the children who went missing and then were pulled out of a secret facility by shadowrunners although no one can pin down exactly who owned it. Shoichi is positive that he's seen every single one of the big ten mentioned at least once.

The "who" is mostly incidental anyway, all it will give him is a place to finally focus his hate. The real burning question is "why".

In between the theft he freelances for proper runners sometimes. Not steadily enough for the same people to be considered part of a team -- he's not sure he could ever handle that -- but he'll fetch maps and scrub camera feeds and any number of incidental things for groups that don't have a dedicated hacker of their own.

He's asked, more than once, by multiple people, if he wants to join them full time but he always declines. Being part of a team means that it's possible some of them might inevitably find out he's awakened, and then they might find out about Spider. Laypeople tend to not realize there's a difference between spiders and bugs, and he doesn't want to try to explain it to someone who might have an itchy trigger finger like a lot of runners do.

Being alone is more comfortable anyway.

 

Yusaku he finds by accident.

They're in the same host, after the same information, and the boy's attack blindsides him. Painful to such a degree that he knows when he logs out he's going to have a nosebleed from the biofeedback at the very least, if not worse.

They're squaring off, testing one another's limits because neither of them is quite sure what to make of the other, when the alarms trigger and self-preservation becomes more important than posturing. Each snatching what they can and escaping back into reality.

(and Shoichi is right, there is a trickle of blood oozing from his nose and his head feels as if it's absolutely splitting the moment he logs out)

He doesn't realize that he kid managed to trace his persona until a message from an unknown sender pops into his AR feed, demanding to know what he was after in there and he wants to immediately discard it. No good can come of letting anyone know about his personal mission, even -- maybe especially -- someone who is interested in what might be the same information he is.

It's Spider that urges him to reply. A nudge and a whisper that amounts to, **He might know something. You should find that much out at least. Maybe you could use him.**

He's not so sure about that last thing, but he fires off a response all the same. [I'll tell you my target if you tell me yours.]

Moments later two words blink onto that open AR window. Two words that steal the air from his lungs and make him forget his headache for a moment.

_Lost Incident._

It's all he needs to hear for things to change again, but that's fine.

After ten years he's well aware that he can never go back.


End file.
